The Sun Zebra

A delightful collection of short stories recounted by a father chronicling the explorations of his daughter Nell. Nell is a very thoughtful, contemplative and questioning little girl who sees things thru the eyes of childhood innocence. These stories will charm and mesmerize as you are engaged in each story from the father's point of view as well as Nell's point of view.

The stories contained in this book are: The Sun Zebra Bob The Intrepid Insectnaut Raven - Lenore The Meaningless Christmas Tree Birdman and The Fairy Tale

Each of these delightful tales manages to convey to a child the meaning of life, heartbreak, death, love and the true meaning of the things we create and hold dear. I found myself laughing and feeling the frustration and satisfaction of a parent trying to explain life in a way that a child can understand.

You will be gratified by the special connection this father has with his daughter and the love they share. This is a book for adults and a book for parents to read with their children. This book is written with a tender humor and a genuine compassion for the importance of the feelings and emotions of a child.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more from R. Garcia.Marilou George ~ The Kindle Book Review

R. Garcia is a wonderful storyteller and in this book he tells stories about his very special daughter Nell and her mother Rhonda. These beautiful recollections of childhood all have a sense of wonder and excitement for life. Each adventure includes a moment in time captured through a child's eyes. There are tales of squirrels, Christmas trees and my favorite story about a zebra. What I especially liked was the surprise endings which were filled with so much joy. This heartwarming read also reveals the wisdom children naturally possess. I also enjoyed the high quality of the stories as they included so much detail which made them fascinating. I know you will love these stories and remember them long after you've finished reading. They reminded me of my one niece who when she was a child used to make wishes. One day we went to a park and she ran around shouting that her wish had come true. The entire park was filled with wildflowers. Children can be so entertaining especially when they believe anything is possible!The Rebecca Review - Top 50 reviewer and Hall of Fame reviewer for Amazon

I must have been quite a handful in Sunday School at my dad's Southern Baptist Church. Somehow, they gave me the impression that God was a jealous old man who needed to learn how to share. I remember my mother telling that story over and over, laughing about a child's logic. As a mom myself, I remember my four-year-old son simplifying my convoluted attempt to explain situational ethics. He is an adult now and I take every chance I can to share the little stories about who he was and is. I do it because I love remembering them.Let's face it, kids DO say the darnedest things. Perhaps it's the structure of their little brains -- or maybe it's that their souls are so fresh -- but it fills me with hope.

"The Sun Zebra" is a delightful journey back to that state of being. It's a series of stories about a clever little girl named Nell as described by her doting father. Nell is a "filosofer" with a wellspring of empathy at age six that many adults have never achieved. One can only imagine where her kindly, curious, tender heart will lead her in the future.

It all begins with "The Sun Zebra" -- the first story in the collection. Nell tells her dad that she's seen a zebra on her grandmother's farm. While the chances of there REALLY being a zebra in Pennsylvania on the Fourth of July are pretty low, the author dutifully searches over hill and dell for Nell's zebra. You want to hug him when he finds it.

Then there's the story of Bob the Cicada Astronaut...and the squirrel home invader. Both stories are about loving parents getting a charge out of their amazing little girl's take on the interesting things that happen in their lives.

However, it's the final story, "The Meaningless Christmas Tree," that sold me on this book. It's about a dying World War II veteran's ability to reach across time to touch a little girl's imagination and teach her what is really important.

Yes, Nell is a "filosofer" but so is her daddy. This little book is like iced tea on a hot day. It changes things inside of you.Joyce Faulkner ~ Author of "In the Shadow of Suribachi," "Losing Patience," "For Shrieking Out Loud," and "USERNAME."

It is difficult for me to decide which of the five stories in this collection I like best because each is charming, original, and filled with a gentle humor and each is about the little girl Nell, her loving mother Rhonda, and her thoughtful father, the narrator. The stories are for adults and for children but they are not stories with the magic of fairy tales or Harry Potter adventures. They contain another and equally wonderful magic, that of reality, specifically, nature. In "The Sun Zebra," we view an old horse in a new way; in "Bob the Intrepid Insectnaut," we meet a special cicada named Bob; and, in "Raven-Lenore," we are introduced to a chubby squirrel that Poe himself might have been amused by. And we see them through the eyes of Nell, the delightful child star of all the stories and, the rich imagination of her father. "Raven-Lenore" is also a tender and beautiful portrait of a father's love for his daughter.In the last two stories, "The Meaningless Christmas Tree" and "Birdman and the Fairy Tale," the author abandons critters for our own species. In the former we meet a World War II veteran with a humble and generous heart. And in "Birdman and the Fairy Tale," we get a closer look into the author's heart when he muses about aging. In this story he refers to himself as "one feeble Big Bad Wolf" and perhaps so but he is certainly one hell of a writer. There is so much love echoing through these stories -- love of family and love of nature -- they are a joy to read.Barbara Alfaro~ Author of "Mirror Talk"

This charming collection of stories is a delight from beginning to end. They capture both the sense of magic that most children have, as well as the viewpoint of the loving parent who can join in and see the world through their child's eyes. Each story flows smoothly, with refreshing originality, until their thought-provoking and poetic conclusions. This is a book you will want to read again and again, particularly aloud to those who are important in your life. Inge Meldgaard~ Author of "A death in the Making" and "The Cicada"I

loved these stories because they are a reminder of what's important in life: the bonds we have with our family and friends and the incredible magic of children. It's clear that there is a special relationship between the father and his young daughter, Nell, and I love the life lessons inherent in these stories - the importance of taking a step back, turning off technology and just allowing ourselves to remember what it was like to be a child, including the learning curve that goes with it. My all-time favorite story of the bunch: "The Meaningless Christmas Tree." Why? You'll just have to read it and find out. Ingrid Ricks~ Author of "Hippie Boy"

On the surface, Sun Zebra is a collection of heartwarming stories about events the lives of a father, mother, and their precocious daughter Nell. The stories are pleasant, funny, and delightful to read, but you quickly discover that they go much deeper than you anticipated when you first began reading them. Phantomimic writes with the voice of a poet and the heart of a philosopher. As you move from story to story, he takes you by the hand to examine some of the deepest issues of life. I recommend this book! -RDMRobert David McNeil~ Author of "Iona Portal"

The Sun Zebra is an utterly delightful set of "children's stories" that are really for adults. In this charming collection, the writer, known as Phantomimic to his many fans at the document sharing site, Scribd, tells a series of stories about encounters with his daughter when she was a little girl. Nell, as she is called in this volume, is precocious, serious, funny, and very sensitive to the world around her. She experiences death, witnesses unusual life (in the horse stall of the first story) and learns the true meaning of her Christmas tree. But the stories are not simple. Rather, they are well crafted and almost cunning in the way that Phantomimic slips in the moral behind each story. In "Raven-Lenore", perhaps my favorite, he draws on Poe's famous poem while narrating a story about life, death and the old oak tree out front. I read this volume out loud to my husband and he fell in love with the smooth writing, gentle good humor, and dexterous use of the English language. We should all be able to make writing appear so easy and fun. Phantomimic simply possesses a unique talent. And I look forward to more. Buy this book and you too will feel the sun shine on you in a new and different way. I promise.Laura Novak~ Author of "Finding Clarity"

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